The Governess
10-22-19
Oh boy (or should I say girl?). Time for the feminist paper, which I’ve been anticipating this whole semester. I could have gone with the Awakening, could have gone with the Yellow Wallpaper, could have gone with Sweat, and instead I picked… The Turn of the Screw. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I picked it, I just figured it would be something interesting to do since it’s not an already objectively feminist story.
Writing my proposal was a little difficult. Obviously, I focused on the fact that James doesn’t even give the Governess a name. That already stands out to me as being a little problematic. I wonder how the story would be read by the audience if she had a real name, like Jane or something. The job of governess also shows the sense of servitude that she has to provide as a woman during the time of the novel. I just need to keep digging for more concepts that I can analyze in this story through a feminist lens.
Revisions, Revisions, Revisions.
10-28-19
Happy midterms! I’m drowning in work right now, but at least I’m getting this blog post done. Everyone else that I know had their midterms all consolidated into one week, but mine has stretched over two weeks with this English 305 class really weighing the workload down on me. At least I feel good about the paper that I’m writing.
The one thing that I am noticing about this class, however, is that the revision process is kind of tripping me up with my other classes. I just got assigned a paper for my Philosophy class and I asked my professor, “will there be any revisions for this after we turn it in?” Turns out, no. I’m getting really used in this class to being able to just submit a draft and not be too perfectionist about it until I hear what my professor has to say. That’s not what it’s like in other classes of mine, though. As much as I’m appreciating the writing process in this class, I can’t apply it to classes outside of my English major.
Finishing Up
11-1-19
You know, I had almost hoped that this specific paper would be really hard to write, so that I could make a joke that this paper was haunting me. Get it? Because of the ghosts? Turns out, this paper was probably the easiest one for me to write for this class, even though I expected it to be pretty difficult to analyze James’ story.
My final draft was easy enough to write. Now that the flood of midterms is over, I got to focus just on this paper and a couple homework assignments. No more exams to worry about. I wrote my final draft while I was waiting for my laundry to be done in the basement of my residence hall, and so my reward for finishing up my work was clean clothes. Ha. I’m happy that this paper was easy enough to write, but I have no idea what to expect for when I need to crack down on my New Historical paper.
